salespodder: sales blog with musings and tips from inside sales

Post Neo-Classical Pitching

October 6, 2008 at 12:24 pm · Filed under grapevine

We appear to have bumbled into credit crunch followed by financial meltdown. The left-of-centre governments of Clinton and Blair over a decade ago, to little Opposition, led the encouragement of lenders to allow people to borrow mountainous sums, with little recourse to whether the interest payments could be maintained, let alone the principal ever repayed.

Unchecked, the banks went bananas. We now see that they lent recklessly, sold on those debts to other banks, fattened their income statements through huge commissions and left their balance sheets one sneeze short of starting an influenza pandemic.

According to engaging economist Robert Sidelsky, it’s Farewell to the Neo-classical Revolution. Unfettered Financiers will be a thing of the past. Here’s a flavour:

“The just-collapsed credit bubble, fueled by so-called special investment vehicles, derivatives, collateralized debt obligations, and phony triple-A ratings, was built on the illusions of mathematical modeling.”

The bonanza is now at an end. The immediate reaction from anyone outside the finance sector was succinct; let them fry. Yet on reflection, schadenfreude shifts to fear. Everyone from housewives to chief execs are keeping their purses shut tight, corporate POs confined to locked cabinets.

The problem now is that no-one wants to spend. Thrift is replacing the excitement of gaining credit. This is undoubtedly going to create problems for us solution sellers. How do you prompt people to spend on your wares?

Well, it’s a toughie. I myself am hearing customers already calling to question next year’s contracts. Here’s two strategies that could benefit us:

CFO Conversation

This must be an opportunity to get on the radar of the chief cheque-signer. Most vendors, when confronted with a demand to reduce prices, will meekly acquiesce. Avoid this trap by asking for a forum with their top bean counter to discuss financial matters. If apt, why not take along one of your finance bods? Ensure first that they are neither eosophobic or phengophobic (just think of a vampire at dawn!). The aim should be to uncover their funding plans. This could be dynamite. Imagine that they’re unaffected. Working capital provides for all their needs, say. Maybe a simple change in payment terms can keep you ‘in’.

Reduce Supply, Not Margin

So there’s no way around it, you’re facing a cull. Again confronted with the unpalletable, when ‘asked’ most vendors will drop their price. If a client states that to keep their business you must cut your price by 10%, you might consider this a small price to pay. But the impact on margin could be horrific. At 40% profit, a 10% price drop reduces your margin by 25%. Work out what each part of your supply costs you, and offer to reduce those costliest bits. A main point is, that whenever you do reduce price, you must get across it’s conditional you’ll reduce supply too. It’s surely preferable to discuss supplying 90% of last period’s product for 90% of the price, as opposed to 100% of previous supply for 90% of cost.

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Thaw Spend Freeze

September 26, 2008 at 1:03 am · Filed under grapevine

I suspect that virtually all of us are experiencing that the credit crunch is biting. I had a couple of cheekies after stumps with a pal of mine Thursday night who’s responsibilities include managing financial risk and reducing borrowing costs for one of the most well-known global luxury retail brands. We got to talking about what needed to happen to bring back the sunshine.

He gave me a fascinating insight into the decrees being cascaded throughout his organisation concerning purchases.

In general, there is no authority for new expenditure. Hardly news for the typical solution salesrep there.

This though is news. Anything where a process improvement is touted is to be ignored. So, claiming you’ll shave or slash time from a process will get you nowhere. The exceptions are twofold; equate an improvement to the direct and instant cutting of a ‘head’, or provide a tangible (ie: raw hard cash only) payback in less than just a couple of months.

And as a final pointer, if you really want to gain traction, offer an evaluation period as a deal-maker.

These tip-offs have certainly made me rethink about how I can get my own foot inside new doors.

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Team Bonding Beyond Beers

September 23, 2008 at 11:13 am · Filed under sport & selling

The regular gag of lament among sales trainers is to often mock Sales Management’s widely held view that the best form of ‘team bonding’ is to take the reps out for a slap-up beano.

If you’re in a team where this logic prevails, then perhaps you can take a leaf out of the legend that is Arsene Wenger’s book. Although his Arsenal are not my footie side, they’ve been the one outfit I’ve always tried to watch since he took over. Everybody I know, including several useful players I’ve had the privilege to line up alongside, feels the same. And the amazement is usually how he manages to get such brilliant performance out of significantly younger and cheaper resource than the other big clubs.

One reason is his focus on the team ethic. Today’s press all carry reports of a single sheet of paper that summarised a recent team meeting. It somehow fell into a random hack’s grubby paws. It is fascinating. Here’s the most detailed report.

There are two summary points, followed by the 14 bullets below. The selling question is twofold; which of these when applied could benefit your team, and how can you apply them?

Our team becomes stronger by:

* Displaying a positive attitude on and off the pitch

* Everyone making the right decisions for the team

* Have an unshakeable belief that we can achieve our target

* Believe in the strength of the team

* Always want more - always give more

* Focus on our communication

* Be demanding with yourself

* Be fresh and well prepared to win

* Focus on being mentally stronger and always keep going until the end

* When we play away from home, believe in our identity and play the football we love to play at home

* Stick together

* Stay grounded and humble as a player and a person

* Show the desire to win in all that you do

* Enjoy and contribute to all that is special about being in a team - don’t take it for granted

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Implementation Hand-Holding

September 15, 2008 at 12:20 pm · Filed under academy, grapevine

I was reminded recently of an all-too-often overlooked part of the sales cycle; implementation. How often do we cringe when hearing of ’salesrep-sold-and-ran’ tales? Ink barely dry, commission already spent, and the customer left in the lurch as a new set of faces takes over part-petrified, part-clueless?

The ’spin’ exponents, Huthwaite, advocate as part of their Major Account Selling Skills courses to think carefully about this. Clients are often nervous. They may have staked a lot on what you’ve sold them. Reputations and cash could be on the line. So understand this, and thoroughly hand-hold them through the immediate post-sale moments.

This doesn’t just mean be there at delivery time, or a few phone calls asking about the weather.

What might that mental agony be based on? What is it they’re apprehensive about? Where do they need to see promises delivered? Find out, and make a plan to document how you provide answers to all such areas. Better still, share this timeline with them beforehand and personally deliver it.

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Another Forecast Spreadsheet

September 3, 2008 at 10:32 am · Filed under grapevine, crm

One of my customers shared with me the parallel reporting that has since resoundingly taken the place of their ditched Goldmine crm. It’s a single worksheet they call the Schiffman Board. It seems that with usage of Goldmine having tailed off to practically no use at all, a new Manager (an American emigré) introduced this spreadsheet.

Web surfing doesn’t shed much light on its origins, although a New Yorker with decades of sales support appears the front runner.

The good news for those exasperated with crm, and bad news for those who promote its use, is that this team appear to fill-in their ‘Board’ and email updates to the Boss on a weekly basis with little grudge. One fella even boasts how it’s improved his forecasting accuracy to such an extent that he’s only a couple of hundred quid out each month.

The spreadsheet has five areas to input:

1st Appointments
10% close chance
50%
90%
Closed

A cheeky macro then populates a trio of forecast figures multiplying the percentage by the deal values; Realistic, Midrange & Longshot.

Whether the probablities chosen are from Mr Schiffman’s recommendation or the team’s boss is unknown. What I feel is critical to its usage though, is the clarity that is given to the thresholds that must be crossed to progress from first appointment through to close.

In this case, after your initial meeting you must have an agreed Needs Analysis to earn a 10% chance. Then a Trial with an agreed feedback meeting ensures a 50% chance. And for 90% certainty, you must have been given the verbal nod.

These can quite readily be adpated to most solution selling situations I’m sure.

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Are You A True Choice Architect?

August 28, 2008 at 12:54 pm · Filed under grapevine

I gained recent exposure to the current big-buzz right-wing think tank concept of Nudge. Rather than telling people to do things, it advocates instead that you let them make their own journey to where you suggest they go. Key to the concept is the use of influence as a Choice Architect.

Each time we provide options, there’s a chance to increase desired take-up by judicious presentation of said alternatives. When doing so, it is crucial to understand that “there is no such thing as a “neutral” design“.

As sales people, we constantly offer choices to potential buyers. The most common format is likely the “PLOF”. Such a ‘Price List Order Form’ is, as the name suggests, acts as both a price list and order form combined. The idea is that buyers can simply tick off what they want. The columns are straight-forward; product code, product description, price, tick the box or fill in the quantity.

In the wholesale-distribution trade they’re omnipresent. Yet whoever creates them should be shot. Better still, asked to re-design them. It’s not difficult to see a process could be relatively easily set-up that creates bespoke PLOFs for each client based on their buying behaviour, both actual or hoped-for in the light of identified gaps.

Then there are Proposals. How often do even the biggest of tickets sellers need to put forward different options? Pretty much every time a Prop is provided. If for no other reason, it’s a way of trying to upsell a touch. Usually, it’s because the precise nature of the eventual order remains unknown. How are the alternatives listed? There’s a great example from the Economist magazine’s subscription efforts, subsequently related to music CD and mp3 experiences, that suggests an intelligent approach to your job as a Choice Architect can bring richer rewards (an incredible 43% bigger in fact for this case).

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Olympian Goals

August 26, 2008 at 4:51 pm · Filed under sport & selling

So much has been written about how Team GB made Britain Great again at the Beijing Games, the past few days have enabled glorious reflection whenever I fancied a break here in London. After recounting the manifold (and largely unexpected) successes, broadsheets have wondered how it was all so miraculously done.

Two strands stand out for me. And they are two things that we’ve never had before. Sure, Olympic competitors have had the drive to awake at 5am each day to swim for hours alone, like double-Gold winner Rebecca Adlington. I’m old enough to remember how middle-distance titans Coe and Ovett, hardly on speaking terms at the time, were spurred on by the thought of what the other was doing to such an extent that Christmas Day was simply nothing other than a normal training day. Gold medallists have always displayed a winning mentality, whether it be Linford Christie’s knowledge of having to run 101 metres to win, or Daley Thompson’s desire to “crush” his opponents. But two strands build on mere individual dedication. And they are a pair that sales people can similarly tap into.

Attention To Detail

The stories of the cyclists’ regimen are rapidly becoming the stuff of legend. No wonder that many other sports are gravitating towards spending time at their Manchester base. They famously re-created their Chinese Village quarters and climatic conditions. Then there’s the Kayak ‘Paddle Project’, where they assessed all sorts of material and shape combinations within the rules to arrive at the best form of propulsion. Consequently, next time I kick-off a solution-selling cycle, I’m minded to mention Team GB’s success, and suggest we follow an Olympian process to uncover all the needs and remedies. How could a prospect turn that plan down?

Around The Edges

The other strand that appeals to my selling focus, is how all the things seemingly only remotely connected to competing are examined. Sir Clive Woodward (now involved with the 2012 delivery) talks of improving 100 things by 1% each. ‘Distraction Control’ is a new phrase I’ve picked up to allow all energy to go into winning, rather than allow some to get diverted onto ultimately fruitless paths. Also, a key reason for the cycling dominance is their team-bond. Rebecaa Romero didn’t feel part of the team until she’d won her Gold. A touch extreme perhaps, but what a fantastic culture to develop if each of your sales team members didn’t feel they belonged until surpassing 100%. And there was also the fact that Team GB riders and support staff couldn’t work out why they were the only country who all stayed en masse to cheer on every single athlete in each race. Again, what an amazing culture to foster.

In short, current cycling supremo Dave Brailsford considers winning a process, rather than an end in itself, and this is something we sellers can readily adopt. We all have the bsaic I guess, ie: a quota, and may well have targets within this, eg: profit split, account growth, new acquisitions. Yet how many of us break this down further? Here’s just a few off-the-wall ideas for starters:

getting 10 prospects to talk to my ‘best’ client
arranging a dozen meetings with people only affected by my solution indirectly or downstream
asking my five largest client’s Head of Sales what their biggest issue is right now and relating that to our solution
working out how to increase my funnel by 10% each quarter
creating forums with 3 of my prospect’s suppliers/customers that would see an impact from my solution

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Anti-Alpinism Victory Obsession

August 18, 2008 at 3:02 pm · Filed under sport & selling

It did occur to me that cycling’s domination by Team GB appeared out of character, bizarre even. And I’ve just learnt why. The Beeb give an excellent narrative of how the nation emerged to take over the sport through a decade of effort. It’s a lesson for anyone trying to break away from apparent random sales success, or turnaround performance from the lack of it. Whether sales individual or team leader, there are some marvellous insights into how to create sustainable results.

I particularly liked the strive to avoid “alpinism”. A great turn of phrase to mean that each accomplishment must leave behind a trail and ropes, so that the system/methods can be followed and improved upon (from the delicious example of Chris Boardman’s terrific, yet one-off, 1992 Barcelona Gold).

Here’s the heart of the vibe, as explained by the initial protagonist, Peter Keen, downbeat after a seemingly superb 2000 Sydney Olympic medal haul…

“We had some good results but we couldn’t really argue there was a system in place or that we had developed a culture.

In fact, it wasn’t until late 2001 that the penny dropped. I needed to clear out riders and coaches who weren’t obsessed with winning.

It was a very hard thing to do and a lot of people found the process incredibly emotional. It was our year zero.”

As aspirant pedal-medal eyes around the world looked enviously on the emerging British achievements, current team boss, Dave Brailsford, gave further insight. Three parts of the plan stand out.

Firstly, he visited Beijing an incredible nine times before the games. One purpose was to build friendships with those due to organise everything. This helped him get first dibs on which ‘pen’ Team GB would get (the team space inside the velodrome). He was determined to grab the best one. Awesome preparation to “leave no stone unturned”.

Secondly, he doesn’t talk about medal-targets. The team don’t set them. Instead, they set process targets. This is a real game-changing idea for sales teams. You know you want to win Gold, yet the end isn’t the focus. It’s how you strive to get there that requires management and focus.

Finally, on the eve of the event, he held a team meeting. He must have needed a large room, as the GB team have many more support staff than anyone else. He asked the question, “is there anything we could have done over the past four years which we have not?” Everyone said ‘no’, so the call was “let’s go racing”.

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Tech VC Pitch Tips

August 12, 2008 at 9:57 am · Filed under grapevine

Most reps I know don’t get über-freaks. Whether it be the billionaires that strike gold ten minutes after founding internet giants like Google, Myspace and Youtube, and the similarly vulgar-rich from pre-web software land-grabbers like Gates, Jobs or Ellison, or right through to the ‘kid’ that sits in a darkened room back at HQ that always seems to put you in your place without ever trying to, these people are just a different breed.

Our regular challenge is to harness the power of their knowledge, and use it (or them in person, if we dare!) to nudge a prospect closer to signing. We ignore them at our peril. In my very first sales role, I took to dragging along a techie as a closing routine, even leaving the room whilst a chat developed. It was high risk, but when I thought the only differentiator was ‘people’, it got my close rates to a peer-whincing 1 in 1.7.

One of my projects right now involves so-called web 2.0 thinking. As such I’ve surfed for pointers on how to best ‘pitch’, so that I can practice with everyone I know. And I stumbled on a TechCrunch post aiming to pass on their 10 tips for presenting a start-up to hopeful investors. It’s fascinating reading considering they state to have gleaned this analysis from hearing 200 pitches themselves and has stirred much debate.

I myself have for most of my selling life needed to ‘demo’ a piece of software. So for me, all but one of their points stand out (re: the phone, as my such demos are always in person) from this as being of equal relevance to me in this field.

I would though advise caution with one. That being the first regarding show the product within 60 seconds. Clearly, a prospective customer demo is different to a potential funder in that the former requires you to show a solution to a situation they wish to resolve, whereas the latter seek to attribute what you offer to their financial return. The difference may seem subtle, yet presenting a solution without first uncovering an explicitly agreed ‘need’ will get you nowhere, especially if you’re talking about a ‘problem’ that they didn’t even know they had.

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Gold Medal Performance Needs Gold Medal Coaches

July 31, 2008 at 11:19 am · Filed under sport & selling

The time-stealer that is rolling TV news served me up a preview of the women’s golf open from Sunningdale. Not in the remotest bit interested, my ears alerted when hearing that England World Cup winning coach Clive Woodward was overseeing the path of a promising 20-year old from near Derby, Melissa Reid.

Sir Clive knows a thing or two about getting the elite to perform. His current job is doing just this for Olympic competitors. But let’s not forget the shambles that was his kiwi Lion’s tour. And what about his legacy at Southampton FC? Anyway, he should acknowledge his experience on what does, and does not, precipitate success.

He has always been an advocate of surrounding (some used to say suffocating) his charges with legions of experts. Along with Clive and her Manager, Team Melissa feature this dirty dozen, the first five being Doctors:

Health
Nutrition
Visual performance
Physiology
Kinesiology
Fitness
Performance movement
Motor skills
Performance analysis
Performing under pressure
Golf swing
Performance director

Melissa is all for it. She’s been quoted approvingly, “Everyone out here is talented, so to get ahead you have to have an edge, to be different. Clive’s idea is that if you put together a team of experts around an athlete they can use their talent to greatest advantage. Talent is not enough.”

In the clip I saw, she talked of her most important discovery being one of dedication. She was unaware of the sheer scale of the permanent level of hard work required on her part to become a champion. A level of commitment that pretty much everyone else in life shies away from.

And I thought of how true this is for sales people. And more so yet for sales teams. I talk to hundreds of external sales people each year. Having had a quick sift through my files, I believe that less than one in ten on-the-roaders engage in anything to improve their results beyond speaking to colleagues. Whether listening to “tapes” in the car or studying a book on sales, the excuses I’ve heard for not doing so include “they’re all too American”, “I haven’t the time” and even “I don’t have to bother with that”.

It would be a simple addition to the next sales meeting get-together to hold a plenary. Get someone holding the marker pen, and have the rest shout out ideas for the selling equivalent of Melissa’s dozen experts. Then you can make a plan for getting them to have consistent, long-term dealings with the team.

If you’re a rep ploughing your lonely furrow, then who do you want to tap into? Make your own list, approach them and make your plan.

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salespodder: sales blog with musings and tips from inside sales

Archive for grapevine

Post Neo-Classical Pitching

Thaw Spend Freeze

Team Bonding Beyond Beers

Implementation Hand-Holding

Another Forecast Spreadsheet

Are You A True Choice Architect?

Olympian Goals

Anti-Alpinism Victory Obsession

Tech VC Pitch Tips

Gold Medal Performance Needs Gold Medal Coaches

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